Do Not Press Play

you have been warned

"My name is Evelyn."

She folded her hands in her lap to keep from fidgeting, but her thumbs twirled against each other. She remembered being a child sitting around the campfire telling scary stories during summer camp, and she couldn't help but wish she were back there instead of psychiatric care. Her family checked her in thinking they could help her, but nothing has stopped it. Now, she was in a whole different type of circle with no camp fire or s'mores to soothe the soul against the scary stories. She faced the others in group therapy, "I’ve been here for forty three days."

A man across the circle from her picked at the frayed sleeve of his sweatshirt. The woman next to him stared at the floor, rocking gently. The therapist smiled at Evelyn thinking it was reassuring, but it just felt condescending.

"Evelyn," the therapist said softly, "would you like to tell us why you're here?"

She nodded.

"But before I do…" Her eyes moved slowly around the circle. "…I need all of you to promise me something."

She took a breath.

"If it ever appears on your screen…"

Her voice caught.

"…don’t press play."

The therapist scribbled something in her notebook before saying, "Evelyn, let’s try to stay grounded in reality, okay."

"I am."

It came out so quietly that it almost blended into the hum of the fluorescent lights.

"I wish I wasn’t."

She took a slow shaky breath.

"It starts the same way for everyone. You don’t search for it. You can’t. It finds you. It chooses you."

•••

"Right before it popped up on my screen, I thought my laptop had just frozen. Every tab closed at once. Spotify stopped playing my music. The screen turned to static. And then a single video appeared. No title. No channel. No comments. Nothing. Just a black rectangle with a white Play button in the center."

She stopped to calm her racing heart.

"I restarted my computer, but the video was still there when it rebooted. I unplugged it, but when it came back on the video was waiting. So I borrowed my roommate’s laptop, and the first thing I saw when it connected was the same black screen with the same white Play button just waiting to be pressed."

She squeezed her eyes shut for a moment as though she could wake up and be back to what her life was before, but, "I should’ve known then. I had seen the Reddit posts and the YouTube videos of people warning not to hit play. I thought it was all just a joke or that they were just crazy... so I did what everyone eventually does."

The weariness in her voice was palpable.

"I pressed play."

•••

"It lasted thirty seven seconds. At first it was just the sound of steady rain. It was actually kind of soothing. Like the kind of sound you play to help you fall asleep. But a few seconds in the breathing started. Unsteady breathing that sounded like someone trying very hard not to cry. And then there was a voice buried beneath the rain. And no matter how loud I turned up the volume, I couldn’t understand a single word. And then it just ended. That was it. Based off of the Reddit post and the YouTube videos, I thought it was going to be something scary, but it was just thirty seven seconds of nothing really."

She shook her head.

"I remember laughing. I actually laughed out loud. I thought it was ridiculous that people had really lost their minds over this, but I didn't know. I didn't know."

•••

"Nothing happened at first. Not that day, not the next, but on the third morning I woke to the sound of rain. It woke me before my alarm. I rolled over, looked out the window, and expected gray skies, but the sun was rising and the sky was clear."

She looked down at her hands in her lap.

"But the sound of rain didn’t stop. And then I heard the same unsteady breathing from the video. And the same words I couldn't understand."

She stopped for a moment to take a deep breath as she felt her anxiety rising.

"After a while, I stopped asking other people if they could hear the rain because they always looked at me the same way. At first they seemed confused and maybe even concerned. They told me to make a doctor's appointment and that it could be tinnitus. But the doctors couldn't find anything wrong with me. Eventually people stopped wanting to be around me, and I pretended I couldn't hear all the rumors being spread about me going crazy."

She wasn't able to hold back the tears as they rolled down her cheeks.

"I kept hearing the rain, and the breathing, and the words I still couldn't understand yet. But the words seemed to be becoming a bit clearer with time. Like I could almost hear them, but they were still out of range. I thought if I just listened harder. I thought if I could just understand what it was saying then I could make it stop. But I was wrong. It never stops."

•••

"It started to feel like someone was with me. Always with me. Close enough that I swear I could sometimes feel their breath against my neck. But there was never anyone there."

A shudder made its way down her spine.

"Even now, I feel something next to me. I could feel its breath and hear it in my head."

•••

"Evelyn."

The therapist looked up from her notes.

"What's happening for you right now?"

Evelyn didn’t answer right away.

She tilted her head slightly.

Listening. Crying. Breathing.

The room waited.

After several long seconds, she said, "It’s louder today. Almost like it's screaming"

The therapist sighed.

Evelyn looked defeated. She knew this was going to be the rest of her life.

She asked, "You can’t hear the rain?"

"No."

She looked around the room as everyone shook their heads.

"I hope you never do."

•••

"They brought me here after I stopped sleeping. I kept telling everyone the same thing. That there was a recording. That people online are trying to warn us. That there were videos of people begging strangers not to listen to it. Forums filled with people arguing whether it was a hoax. News articles calling it mass hysteria."

She felt so broken because not a single person who was supposed to love her believed her.

"Everyone laughed at the people making the warnings. I laughed at them even after I hit play. I know they sound crazy. I know I sound crazy. And I hope you never find out how not crazy we are."

•••

"You know what the cruelest part is? I finally understood what it was saying. I couldn’t understand it until…"

She sighed.

The therapist leaned in.

"What did it say?"

Evelyn opened her mouth to say, but instead, "It doesn’t matter. By the time you understand… it doesn’t matter anymore. It's too late."

•••

The group session ended twenty minutes late.

The therapist thanked everyone for sharing.

And the patients drifted back toward their rooms.

But Evelyn remained seated.

One of the nurses opened the door, and she called to him. She knew him. She had spoken to him many times.

"Carl, please."

He turned. He knew exactly what she was going to say. With Evelyn, it was always the same warning. She warned everyone, everyday.

"If it ever appears on your screen, Carl..."

He smiled kindly. Even though he thought she was unwell, she was always nice to him.

"I won’t press play, Evelyn. You should go ahead and head back to your room now."

She almost smiled back as he walked away to attend his duties.

“You will," she whispered to herself. "Everyone presses play."

•••

A few nights later, Carl was finishing his chart at the nurses’ station.

The unit was quiet as it always was that time of night.

His monitor flickered once.

Then again.

The patient’s records vanished.

The screen turned to static.

And a video player appeared.

No title.

Just a black screen with a single white triangle to hit Play.

He stared at it for what felt like eternity, but was in reality only a few seconds.

Then he laughed under his breath.

Evelyn.

He shook his head.

It’s amazing what this job puts in your head, he thought to himself.

He pressed Play.

Thirty seven seconds.

Rain.

Breathing.

A voice he couldn’t quite understand.

Then nothing.

He chuckled at himself for getting spooked.

He closed the window.

Finished his notes.

And went home.

•••

Three days later during a morning shift, he was walking the rounds with another nurse.

They passed Room 17.

Evelyn's room. She was sitting quietly on the edge of her bed.

She looked up as they passed.

Carl slowed. He smiled softly as he made eye contact with her and gave her a gentle nod as if to say good morning.

Then he took a quick glance out of her window and frowned.

Bright blue sky.

Not a single cloud.

He looked at his coworker.

His voice was barely above a whisper.

"Can I ask you something?"

"Sure."

Carl hesitated for a moment.

"Do you hear rain?"

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